Prison for forcing women to be exotic dancers

A Russian native was sentenced to 9 years and 4 months in prison Wednesday for forcing five young Latvian women to work as exotic dancers in the Chicago area under slavelike conditions.

In lengthy remarks in U.S. District Court in Chicago, Alex Mishulovich, 41, denied organizing the scheme. But Judge Joan Gottschall called the evidence overwhelming that Mishulovich was the key player.

At the request of his lawyer, Mishulovich was also ordered by the judge to undergo counseling in prison for alcohol abuse.

Mishulovich pleaded guilty two years ago, agreed to cooperate with law enforcement and testified for the government at the trial of co-defendant Vadim Gorr of Lake Zurich.

A federal jury acquitted Gorr on charges of forcing the women into involuntary servitude but convicted him of visa fraud for helping to get the Latvian women into the U.S. under false pretenses. Gorr was sentenced to 21 months in prison.

Prosecutors Terry Kinney and Marsha McClellan said Mishulovich maintained control over the women through intimidation and violence. He beat them, put guns to their heads and threatened them with knives, the prosecutors said.

According to his plea agreement, Mishulovich claimed to have extensive organized crime connections, particularly with the Chechen Mafia, and threatened to kill the women and their families in Latvia if they did not do as he demanded.

At first the five women were kept in a one-bedroom apartment in Mt. Prospect and forbidden to leave without Mishulovich or other partners, authorities said.

The women worked at least six nights a week at Chicago-area strip clubs in 1996 and 1997 and were forced to give Mishulovich and his partners all but a small amount of their pay.

Mishulovich called the scheme "a horrible, disgusting, stupid business," but he downplayed his role. "Not in a million years did I think I would be standing before the Honorable Joan Gottschall facing this kind of time," he said. "I simply ask for a second chance."